The Game
by rapid-apathy
Summary: What they never understand is, it's all a game. Claude/Hannah


_Whatever is immoderate comes from the demons _– _St. _Poemen_ the Great_

It's a rather peculiar thing, this human world.

If you were to ask any within the realm below, they would all easily point out the precise humors the one above clings to, perpetuates and blindly dies for:

A sense of fairness. Of what's right and wrong and how things should be. Justice. Being made whole.

To punish those that have taken from us. To make someone, something, pay for what they have done.

Revenge.

These rather peculiar things.

The thing is humans are not able to accept that the world is not and never has been fair. It's not philosophy or opinion or perception, it's not political theory; it is simply the way nature and God are. Trillions of life forms struggle through life, only to be someone's lunch or to be completely stamped out of existence for not being fast enough, strong enough; simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One species lives, the other dies. The rich are given free meals, the poor die of hunger in the street. Even human concepts of God are outlandishly unfair in and of themselves, yet billions live out their lives thinking they are immune to this universal truth. That you can cheat it. That you are worth more, for some reason. Whatever you tell yourself in those dark hours of your despair and humiliation and fool yourself into believing.

Whatever gets you through your miserable human life.

The soul can never be mended. Much like suffering a crippling injury to the body, the phantom pain of amputation, the scorching fire of damaged nerves; scars will form, tissue will thicken, but nothing will ever be the way it was. No matter how much drugs you take, how many surgeries you have, or how much praying you do. Nothing.

It's the tearing down and rebuilding, the scars from this misguided sense of justice that mold a soul, making it tempting or revolting. That give it a nuanced smoothness or bitter dryness. That make it worth obtaining, regardless of the time or effort needed to perfect it; to shatter it so completely. To break the status quo and the ordinary, to make it truly exceptional. But no soul is ever truly perfected without intervention, without innovation on its desirer's behalf. It's an art form, a craft, a process, a game. It's the reason a demon wakes, a god creates or an angel protects. It's the very reason for existence itself in the world unseen. Much like unformed clay or a deck of cards, neither will take any shape without skill and attention. One must slowly build a house of cards, for example, carefully lay out foundations and add one card at a time, balancing each addition, always planning the next step.

Controlled chaos. Applied design.

OOOO

So when Hannah realizes that suddenly something matters in a way it hasn't before, something in mortal form, blonde hair and ruddy face - when it matters; everything changes.

Yet nothing does.

What humans don't understand is, it's all a game. Contracts. Butlers. Revenge. Life.

When your long weary existence revolves around the pleasure of eating, you need to make your meals interesting. You lay out the expensive table ware. You start buying exotic specialty ingredients. Use expensive culinary tools and learn painstaking old world practices to get it just right. To get the meal just right.

To truly master the game, you must be prepared to change plans when the inevitable surprise comes. No matter how well you plan and make contingency after contingency, there's always something, or someone, you never expect.

Like when he blames anything to the Master's displeasure on her. When she gives the Master things he's been refused. Candy, toys, sugary caffeine laden things before bedtime; it doesn't really matter what it is; only that whatever it is has been denied, usually for good reason. When she gives it to him and still gives the credit to Claude, making the Master fawn over him all the more, while moving her game piece forward on the playing surface that is Alois Trancy.

When at three A.M when a hyperactive child is running down the hallways sliding on his socks screaming at the top of his lungs for everyone to watch. How once a week a toy is broken or the Master's favorite clothes taken to the laundry are suddenly shrunk. When all of the sugar has been replaced with salt. Reprimands. Punishments. Each one purposefully plays out in order to move the game towards completion.

And within this game is a game of its own, this competition between devils. Who will win, who will lose, the unknown of just how exactly she'll be punished – because she is _always_ the one to be punished. If the little Master will let him do it.

Competitive foreplay.

When a young boy sees his maid bracing herself against the kitchen table, her dress pushed up over her hips, his butler's face obscured by lace clad thighs; there's a reaction within the confines of the playing field. It's a brilliant ignition switch, the frailty of the undying innocence of children. No matter how ruined and violated their bodies and minds can be, it is always there. An unadulterated need to be loved, to mean something to someone. To be first and foremost. The opposite side of this playing piece, is the most predictable and powerful human emotion.

Only this time, everything changes. When she sees him.

These peculiar things.

He looks just like the boy did then, small and porcelain angel.

Yet nothing does.


End file.
